


Husk

by GhostRacha



Series: One of a Kind [1]
Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Changbin is a Hero, Creepy, Gun Violence, Han Jisung is a Creep, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Torture, Inspired by Music, Kidnapping, M/M, Morally Ambiguous Character, Murder, Poetic, Stalking, Stockholm Syndrome, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, Wordcount: Under 10.000, not really but as a threat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-18 06:00:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28738404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostRacha/pseuds/GhostRacha
Summary: Icarus and the Sun are often portrayed asloversWhen in fact it was the sea that held himafter his fallWho stung his scorched skin with sweet kisses.It had been easy to figure out his name. “Local hero Seo Changbin saves drowning boy,” it had been on the news. Jisung had watched it while in recovery - the way Changbin had seemed sheepish despite his heroics. It made Jisung smile in the off-white room.As soon as he was out he went on a journey to buy him flowers and show up at his door. He wanted to thank him. Over time, as Jisung kept in touch, he had developed feelings again. It terrified him.“Bin,”Jisung said with a smile. Changbin smiled back at him, looking over his shoulder to meet his eyes.“I owe you everything, you know?”
Relationships: Han Jisung | Han/Seo Changbin
Series: One of a Kind [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2141766
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28
Collections: Be Kind: Rewind! | SKZ 90s Fic Fest





	Husk

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone!  
> First of all, the Disclaimers. I do not consent to any reposting of my fics to any other media.  
> I do not condone or intend to romanticize anything in this fic, I've decided to branch out with this and explore new ideas - I happen to love horror and morally grey makes-you-think scenarios. I promise the tags make this seem far worse than it is.
> 
> Husk is a culmination of things. it's a weird project I had to restart a stupid amount of times in order to tell the story correctly, and I'm not even sure if I've done it justice this time around.  
> Husk is also heavily inspired by the song I chose for this ficfest, Creep. The concept was there before the fest started, but I couldn't pass up a perfect song match. The fest song is the Radiohead version, the original, but I also included another rendition I love to the story. It's weird, kind of poetic, and honestly up for debate on how it ends. Good or bad is up to you! 
> 
> Feel free to let me know what you think! I try to answer everyone!

**_Icarus and the Sun are often portrayed as  
_ **

**_lovers  
_ **

**_When in fact it was the sea that held him after  
_ **

**_his fall  
_ **

**_Who stung his scorched skin with sweet kisses._ **

**When you were here before**

Han Jisung remembers the feeling of falling. He remembers before he fell, how close to the sun he had become and how the warmth was welcomed. He had fallen - into a trap, into a pot of water he didn’t realize had begun to boil. He hadn’t until it was too late, and his wings melted away with the first sign of infidelity. With his wings melted his forsaken engagement ring, and the rest is history.  
He fell hard. He plummeted, screaming and flailing with every box he moved out of the shared home. He had been drowning in wax before he even hit the water, and the initial shock of the cold depths knocked the air from his lungs. The wax hardened in every crack of his broken being, somehow making him whole again.

Jisung had taken comfort in the way the salt weighed his lungs down, the pain of his past burns numbing in comparison. It extinguished him. It sunk him, the weight of the long gone wings leaving him clawing for the surface. He never wanted to drown.  
Then, there he was, pulling Jisung from the water and forcing him to cough up every ounce of his past self. Every wet cough brought him back up to the surface, finding a new sun shining brightly before him. An untainted one, a sun that didn’t hurt to touch and still gave him warmth. There was Seo Changbin. Through his wet hair and blurry vision, Han Jisung memorized the face of the stranger who had saved his life. That had been a year ago, now.

It had been easy to figure out his name. “Local hero Seo Changbin saves drowning boy,” it had been on the news. Jisung had watched it while in recovery - the way Changbin had seemed sheepish despite his heroics. It made Jisung smile in the off-white room.  
As soon as he was out he went on a journey to buy him flowers and show up at his door. He wanted to thank him. Instead, Changbin had found him in his bed, his own voice playing through the mounted television. His mother is a nurse, he explained, which is how he saved him in the first place. His mother had directed him to Jisung’s room.  
Over time, as Jisung kept in touch, he had developed feelings again. It terrified him.

_“Bin,” Jisung said with a smile. Changbin smiled back at him, looking over his shoulder to meet his eyes. “I owe you everything, you know?”_

**Couldn't look you in the eye**

Han Jisung remembers sitting outside of Changbin’s apartment complex. The lit cigarettes he never lifted to his lips in order to observe his hero from afar. He would stand beneath the same streetlight, learn the boys routine and go for his fake smoke five minutes before he would come outside.  
He remembers that it would take him thirty-five seconds to descend the two flights of stairs, and that he would lock his door twice every time he left.  
He remembers the avoided chance encounters, the way he had to hide his face until he was ready to face his fears. To face his hero.  
Eventually, he moved into the apartment next door. Pure coincidence, or as he preached to Changbin - fate. Fate because it was ‘the only place in his price range.’ Fate because Changbin hadn’t thought anything odd about it at the time.

On a random Tuesday last year, Jisung had confessed. They had cried, they had fought, but ultimately they came to a conclusion. They would try. See where it goes, hope for a happy ending.

Jisung was pacing back and forth, and Changbin couldn’t talk him down. Through it all, with a hoarse whisper, Changbin agreed to stay with Jisung.

The year has passed. It was hard. It made them grow, pushed them apart and sewed them up all the same. Han Jisung can feel the warmth on the horizon. He has hope again.

**You're just like an angel**

“Jisung,” Changbin says, tilting his head into Jisung’s line of sight. “Why don’t we go back to the beach?” They had been pondering all day over where they should celebrate. Changbin has been looking forward to getting away, and Jisung had decided to just let the boy pick. “You know, where we first met?” He says it almost sarcastically. Jisung has always loved the bite in his tone and Changbin definitely feeds into it. Jisung considers for a moment - he hasn’t been back to the beach in over a year. He swears he had died there - born again by the one person he believes is meant to love him. It’s poetic, he thinks, so he nods his head and gestures for Changbin to get ready. The boy grins before him, shining brightly; Jisung’s chest aches.

**Your skin makes me cry**

**_N O W P L A Y I N G_ **   
**[| >|]**  
_Creep: Radiohead_

The rain begins slowly, thudding quietly on the sand and chilling their arms. Jisung smiles, looking up to the greying sky and letting the drops that fall land on his eyelashes. Maybe he’s being blessed - maybe the sky is just crying for them both.  
Jisung turns his attention to Changbin, reaching out his hands and taking the others’ and intertwining their fingers. He grins, teeth and gums on display. For some reason it makes Changbin nervous; he doesn’t think he’s afraid, though. It reminds him of a wolf bearing its teeth more than a display of happiness. He feels the chill in the air and lets goosebumps tickle up and down the wide expanse of his back. Jisung pulls him toward the water, nearly tripping over himself and kicking sand onto their already irritated skin. Changbin lets himself be dragged along, hissing at the cold lapping at his feet. He grumbles but as usual, Jisung pays him no mind.  
“Come _on_ ,” Jisung prompts. Changbin glares at the suggestion. “Don’t you feel alive out here?” Jisung teases. He leans his face close to Changbin’s, and Changbin holds his breath. Jisung just smiles, batting his eyelashes and pulling him farther into the numbing cold. Changbin is sure he’s shaking, he knows that Jisung’s lips are turning a muted shade of blue. He doesn’t know why he doesn’t want to be here. They wade deeper nonetheless, until the raindrops get too heavy and begin to hammer on their shoulders.  
They look at each other before moving back toward shore, their hair plastered to their foreheads and their teeth chattering. Jisung moves closer. Changbin tilts his head in the direction to go back, but Jisung is already holding his forearms beneath the surface. Changbin’s heart is in his ears. The thunder above them blends with the high pitch ringing in his head - and Jisung presses their lips together.

  
Maybe if it weren’t so cold, Changbin could feel something. Maybe he would be able to melt into the warmth rather than feeling nothing other than a light push against him. Maybe he would have closed his eyes, enjoyed it and maybe it could have been worth the last year he has had to go through. But it isn’t. A sudden realization racks through his body like lightning.  
Changbin raises his arms to hold the back of Jisung’s neck, the boy eagerly moving in closer. Changbin draws his arms around Jisung, circling over top of his arms and trapping him against his chest. The ringing gets louder.

_Changbin woke up a year ago bound to what he thought was a hospital bed. Instead of a doctor, he found Jisung staring down at him with an unfamiliar emptiness about him. The boy he saved must have died after all, he remembers thinking._

“I love you,” Jisung says, calling it loudly over the rain. Changbin opens his eyes. Jisung is smiling at him. The rain is blurring Changbin’s sight. Their faces are so close. Changbin pushes on Jisung’s shoulders. “Binnie?” He yelps. The plea is muffled by Jisung submerging.

_“I’ll make a deal with you,” Jisung hums. The gun in his hand shines in the dim light of the basement. The barrel taps against his lips. “I have a thing about people leaving, Changbin. I can’t have that happening to me again.” He sighs heavily, shutting his eyes and bowing his head to tap the barrel instead. “If you stay here with me, nothing happens.” He says passively, gesturing loosely with the handgun waving aimlessly. Changbin’s eyes follow the motion. “Now, will you let me untie you?”_

Jisung is scratching, trying to kick Changbin’s legs from under him and wasting his breath by screaming. The water slows him just enough to keep the kicking to a minimum. The bubbles cover the distorted image of his face; Changbin is glad for that. Jisung’s dull nails scratch up and down his arms, the saltwater stinging through the cold. It makes his bleeding arms itch and ignite in pain - the cold numbs it all the same.

_“I should have let you drown,” Changbin bit. Jisung looked at him for a moment before leaving the room, oddly calm considering. Changbin shuffled on his knees toward the door, calling for the coward to come back and face him. Jisung returned abruptly and slammed the door behind him.  
“Say it again.” Jisung said. Changbin glared up at him.  
“I wish I never saved you.” He said. He made a show of spitting at Jisung’s feet, and after a split second of Jisung lunging at him - the rest was dark. _

Changbin manages to pin Jisung beneath him, the boy trapped with his hands bound by Changbin’s. Changbin’s foot holds Jisung’s neck in place against the sand. The rain pours hard enough to hide any remaining bubbles from his struggle. His lungs must be burning by now. What a painful way to go.  
Changbin is shaking, squeezing Jisung’s wrists hard enough to pale his knuckles. Blood from his arms drips slowly into the water. Jisung jolts twice, his balled fists falling loose and making Changbin’s chest burn.

_“I was engaged once, you know,” Jisung had confided. Changbin nodded. He’d heard the story before. The engagement, the cheating, the often re-lived sob story. “Did I ever tell you what happened to him?” Changbin shook his head. Jisung sighed quietly, raising a glass to his lips. “They found his body.” He lowered the glass. Changbin felt for a moment something other than anger - sympathy?  
“I uh-” Changbin cleared his throat. “I’m so sorry.” Changbin fiddled with his leg restraint.  
“Don’t worry about it,” Jisung sipped down the rest of his drink and set the glass upside down on the table. “I guess I didn’t weigh him down well enough.” Changbin began to gag. _

Changbin releases Jisung’s wrists, his joints stiff from the cold and his feet already moving Jisung farther into the water. He runs as fast as he can to shore. He repeatedly trips over himself, having to catch himself with his hands. Everything hurts, everything is far too loud. Thunder booms above him as he scrambles to their remnants of the day. Jisung’s wallet, their sandy towels and Changbin’s day bag lie within a cave. He fumbles around with the bag, shoving everything into it and feeling something firm scrape against his knuckles. He fishes under the spare sunscreen and sunglasses, pulling out a small velvet textured box. He opens it to find a ring, and the ringing stops.

What has he done?

He looks out to the water, sinking to his knees in the sand. He screams, thunder eclipsing him and the way his pain tears through his chest. Jisung is dead. Isn’t that what he’s wanted? He thought so.  
Changbin hiccups and gasps, sliding the ring over his sandy finger. He wears it on his first finger, shakily bringing his hand to his lips and kissing the cold metal.  
He should be happy.

He has been kept for a year. Beaten, humiliated, and hidden away from the world until this very moment.  
Maybe he cries for the times when Jisung wasn’t so bad.  
For the days he would let Changbin roam around the house and do as he pleases, although it took a long time to gain trust in order to do so. Maybe for the moments after the beatings, where Jisung seemed to actually regret hurting him at all and would help him in the days afterward.  
Maybe he cries because things had been going well. They were out of the house, Changbin had had contact with his family and they were planning to meet the ‘long awaited boyfriend.’ Maybe his family will be bummed out because of Jisung never arriving. Changbin cries because he will have to make up a lie - he will have to erase a year of hardship and write it off as a breakup, he moved away and that’s that. Was his pain enough to justify what he just did?  
That was a human being. A man who trusted him. Loved him. Even if only in a demented, vile way, it had been real to him and his sick mind. He was somebody’s child. And now he is gone.  
Isn’t this what he wanted?

Changbin had wished time and time again for the death of his captor. On bad nights where he was left spitting blood and bruised, he had wished for any terrible thing to happen to him. On nights where his heart fluttered at the closeness of their faces and he didn’t think it was from fear, he still wished. He wished for him to stop playing with his mind and trying to make him hollow. He hated Jisung for trying to make him a husk of what he used to be, hoping for any god to strike him where he stood. Changbin doesn’t remember when he stopped wishing for such a thing.

_“You know, Binnie,” Jisung hummed. “I’m so glad I found you.” Changbin almost swore he sounded genuine.  
“Why? Why torture the person who saved you?”  
“Is it really torture?” Jisung scoffed. “I feed you. I clean you up. I keep you safe.”  
“No,” Changbin cried. “You don’t.”  
Jisung had grabbed his hair, craning his head back painfully far and made sure to look him in the eye.  
“I could make your life so much worse,” Jisung said quietly. His voice was calm and his eyes dead - Changbin broke eye contact and Jisung simply pushed his head away. Changbin knew he was right. _

He could have been treated far worse. He could be glass eyed and being picked apart by fish, much like Jisung will be. Changbin squeezes his eyes shut. Behind his eyelids is Jisung, wet hair plastered to his head. His eyes open wide and foggy, his pale blue lips spewing saltwater. What has he done?

_“Why do you keep me here?” Changbin had asked.  
“You saved my life,” Jisung had said.  
“So you ruin mine?” Changbin has snapped. Jisung had squatted down beside the chained boy, gently pushing the hair from his face.  
“I was trying to kill myself when you saved me. Now,” Jisung gestured toward his chains. “Now I can save you too.” Changbin hated the pride on his face._

_“Changbin can you help me?” Jisung called. Changbin made his way to the kitchen, looping his arms around Jisung’s waist. Jisung smiled at him. They had breakfast together that day. They watched movies, talked and even if only for a few moments - Changbin had been happy for Jisung in his life. Happy he wasn’t completely isolated, happy he wasn’t dead, happy for many small things. Han Jisung was no small thing to him._

_Changbin and Jisung sit outside, on the balcony where Jisung knows Changbin won’t jump. They look at the stars in silence. Changbin is tattered yet clean - bags weigh heavy under his eyes and his wrists sore from captivity. Jisung had recently let him shower.  
“Can I tell you something?” Jisung asks. Changbin looks at him with fully adjusted eyes, locking onto his solemn face. Changbin nods twice. “Human to human,” Jisung adds, looking at Changbin with something ignited in his eyes. “Not creep to captive.” Changbin waits for him to continue.  
He sighs, raising his hand slowly to brush Changbin’s overgrown hair from his eyes. His cheeks are bruised, but Jisung’s fingers glide painlessly over them. He looks Changbin in the eye.  
“I’m terrified.” He says. He says it with finality, with an added weight of something Changbin hadn’t yet understood. “You must be too, right?” He lets his face soften, a rare sight for Changbin to behold. “I’ve done some bad shit, man,” Jisung breathes. Changbin nods slowly, his eyebrows lowering. “I can’t explain any of it to you. I don’t really get it myself.” He says. Changbin looks out at the illuminated windows across the street, the people walking within earshot on the sidewalk.  
“What is it you’re afraid of?” Changbin asks quietly, looking at Jisung directly.  
“I’m nothing, here. I’m worse than that.” He clicks his tongue, giving Changbin a hint of a smirk. “I’m afraid of death I guess. I’ve brought it to others, but,” He sighs.  
“You’re afraid of what will happen?” Changbin asks.  
“Or what won’t.” He says. They share a look for a moment, the night air blowing their hair and chilling their skin. Somehow, in some sort of shared alignment, the look seemed to speak for them; as if giving way to the answers. “Are you afraid I’ll kill you, Changbin?” Changbin couldn’t look away.  
“I don’t know,” He says. “I don’t know.”  
“Are you afraid of me?”  
Changbin looks at him in his entirety for the first time in months. The way his feet point in on themselves and the way he leans his weight on his elbows. His eyes trail the boy’s intertwined knuckles, up to his shoulders and over his barely parted lips.  
Human. Nothing more._

**_Maybe he cries for the times Jisung wasn’t so bad.  
Before the restraints  
Before something in his mind snapped  
Maybe it had always been broken  
He had killed before  
And Changbin killed him  
Maybe the sky cries for them both  
Cries for the boy with patched up wings returning to the depths again  
Maybe he cries because he had loved him  
...Maybe_ **

**N O W P L A Y I N G**   
**[| >|]**  
_Creep: Postmodern Jukebox - Haley Reinhart_

Changbin walks out of the police station easily, a quiet respect held for the boy who has just been informed of his ex-boyfriend’s body being recovered. Everyone averts their eyes, some nod their heads. They knew. He had saved the same boy three years ago on the same beach. Everyone expected him to be upset, and he was. He held his tears and clenched his jaw through the related information of their struggle to even identify him. 

He leaves with haste, wiping his face and getting into his car only to lock the doors and leave nothing but tire treads behind. 

_“I guess I didn’t weigh him down well enough,”_ Changbin whispers to himself. Maybe Jisung succeeded after all. 

  
  


**_And so, he fell_ **

**_into the depths and the unknown_ **

**_Only to find his hardened wings_ **

**_had weighed him down rather quickly._ **

**_His fall had been inevitable, it seemed._ **

**_One way or another, his wings would be his end_ **

**_and the sky would weep for his descent._ **

...  
  


**_Tragic, seems love._ **

**_So twisted and vile a creature._ **

**_It can tear you apart time and time again_ **

**_And yet you’d still ask for more._ **

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Psst, if you see this lmk how it went - I enjoyed trying a new style!


End file.
